CoinLab suing MtGox for $75 milliion?

[repentance]

Roger Ver is saying that he knew nothing about the lawsuit until news of it was posted on these forums.

A 75 million dollar lawsuit is a pretty huge thing to keep your investors in the dark about.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=193922.msg2013531#msg2013531

Well, I'm seeing Roger as a standup dude, but when there's talk about a lot of money, it's not that easy to know anymore.

Lawsuits tend to bring out the dirt.  If people have been lying, it's going to come out when the parties start flinging shit at each other and I'm damned sure there'll be a ton of people on here reading every single document filed with the court. 

[tvbcof]

Roger Ver is saying that he knew nothing about the lawsuit until news of it was posted on these forums.

A 75 million dollar lawsuit is a pretty huge thing to keep your investors in the dark about.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=193922.msg2013531#msg2013531

Well, I'm seeing Roger as a standup dude, but when there's talk about a lot of money, it's not that easy to know anymore.

Maybe he's one of those "have money, will send to strangers" type folks?  He seems a veritable gold-mine for a certain class of participants in the ecosystem.

[abbyd]

I'm tempted to say, I told you so, but at least it seems that my reservations (or rather questions) towards Vess were warranted.

Here's an old thread that could be relevant:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=148147.0;all
...
So it seems to me that Coinlab is burning bridges and attempting a very opportunistic lawsuit.

I've had about enough of this Vess tea-bagger. This lawsuit reeks of frivolity and is well-timed to dump BTC valuation over the weekend.
How hard would it be for anyone with inside knowledge of the lawsuit to pre-sell, then get ready to buy after the panic (Guess what,
there are no "insider trading" laws regarding bitcoin)? There are any number of ways to profit from this lawsuit, and I don't regard
any of them as ethical. Worse still, the lawsuit is HORRIBLE for the bitcoin community and the currency's public image.  Mt Gox needs
competition, but this is precisely the wrong way to create it.

Maybe the thread titled "Should Peter Vessenes resign as CEO of the Bitcoin Foundation?" was NOT premature.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=177679.0

There are talks about some selling not long ago that was done prior to this announcement. I won't mention any names though. But clearly there were a number of persons knowing about the lawsuit before it went public.

There was an obvious huge sell-side imbalance in BTC market the past few days. But nobody knew...
What goes around comes around. The only ways to counteract this strategy are to: 1) hold your coins,
or 2) wait until the next bull run, and drop your own logic bomb on these twats.

[Herodes]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57582688-93/bitcoin-exchange-partnership-dissolves-with-lawsuit/

It's making the rounds.

[dancingnancy]

Why the fuck can @magicaltux get to work immediately on this when he owes us bitcoinica creditors tons of coins first?  Can't gawker or some other website pick up that mt gox has probably been financing their operations with our money this whole time? 

[repentance]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57582688-93/bitcoin-exchange-partnership-dissolves-with-lawsuit/

It's making the rounds.

Let's see how inaccurate it is by the time Verge and Wired pick it up.

[myrkul]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57582688-93/bitcoin-exchange-partnership-dissolves-with-lawsuit/

It's making the rounds.

Let's see how inaccurate it is by the time Verge and Wired pick it up.

well it is very bad press for coinlab/mt gox and worst of all BTC no matter what is said.

No such thing as bad publicity?

[Franktank]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57582688-93/bitcoin-exchange-partnership-dissolves-with-lawsuit/

It's making the rounds.

Let's see how inaccurate it is by the time Verge and Wired pick it up.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/2/4295638/top-bitcoin-exchange-75-million-lawsuit-international-partnership

The article seemed fine (in terms of info) and what do you have against the Verge?

DISCLAIMER: I'ma Verge fanboy and have been following them since their days of Engadget and ThisIsMyNext.

[repentance]

well it is very bad press for coinlab/mt gox and worst of all BTC no matter what is said.

You can't realistically expect companies not to exercise their legal options because doing so might reflect badly on Bitcoin.

Plenty of people would sue Trendon Shavers if they though they could win in court, and his scam makes BTC look far more shady than any dispute between MtGox and CoinLab.

The article seemed fine (in terms of info) and what do you have against the Verge?

Mostly that they often pick up stories first published elsewhere and do no fact checking before republishing them.

[Herodes]

Relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5648282

[cbeast]

If exchanges were decentralized, they would be very difficult to sue.

[repentance]

If exchanges were decentralized, they would be very difficult to sue.

This is a contractual dispute between business partners.  No amount of decentralisation is going to stop people forming business partnerships or suing one another when deals go sour.

[cbeast]

If exchanges were decentralized, they would be very difficult to sue.

This is a contractual dispute between business partners.  No amount of decentralisation is going to stop people forming business partnerships or suing one another when deals go sour.

A decentralized exchange would have no need of business partners. In fact, they could even be loosely distributed with a network of brokers. Only brokers would have contractual obligations with their clients. The exchanges would only require licensing.

Mt Gox has bitten off more than it can chew or they would not have reached out to Coinlab in the first place.

[abbyd]

If exchanges were decentralized, they would be very difficult to sue.

This is a contractual dispute between business partners.  No amount of decentralisation is going to stop people forming business partnerships or suing one another when deals go sour.

Or, alternately, you won't stop people from "executing a planned frivolous lawsuit strategy aimed at destabilizing the top-grossing bitcoin entity, whilst profiting from panic-selling."

[mem]

Basically coinlab must of expected mtgox to freeze all North American accounts until they could be handed over to coinlab.
MTGox would have to be insane to do this as they would suffer a mass exodus of clients during the transition period.

Shame Mt. Gox didn't pick up on that before signing the contract.

Yep, this is why you need lawyers to examine contracts and NEVER sign on (or bet) on something that you do not understand and or that does not cover every detail explicitly.

[mem]

Incorporated in Delaware who charges no income tax on corporations not operating within the state, suing MtGox for 75000000$, surely Coinlab has the well being of the Bitcoin community as their number one priority and money doesn't matter to them.

^ this, Im certain Coinlab is an elaborate money grab scam.

[repentance]

If exchanges were decentralized, they would be very difficult to sue.

This is a contractual dispute between business partners.  No amount of decentralisation is going to stop people forming business partnerships or suing one another when deals go sour.

A decentralized exchange would have no need of business partners. In fact, they could even be loosely distributed with a network of brokers. Only brokers would have contractual obligations with their clients. The exchanges would only require licensing.

Mt Gox has bitten off more than it can chew or they would not have reached out to Coinlab in the first place.

I don't disagree with you about MtGox being out of its depth.  FACTA is a huge game changer for any financial services provider in nations which are implementing it and foreign banks and trading houses started dumping US customers long ago to avoid its requirements.  At least on the surface, MtGox had to scramble to find a way of dealing with it.

That said, I doubt that over the longer term exchanges like MtGox will remain relevant.  Different types of financial service providers will emerge and plenty of them will involve partnerships of some kind.  Start-ups plus partnerships in new industries pretty much guarantees that there'll be plenty of contractual disputes and subsequent lawsuits.  Take it as an indication that Bitcoin business is now regarded as worth suing over.

Stop thinking that Bitcoin is "different".  It's going to see the same kind of business tactics as the conventional business world, regardless of how much Bitcoin enterprises might drape themselves in ideology. 

[darkmule]

This is just a demonstration of a simple fact.  You can fuck around with Bitcoiners and all they will do is cry about it like pussies.

Make a contract with venture capitalists and fuck them and they will sue you.  

I don't know who is right yet, but it's pretty obvious MtGox signed a contract and is not following through.  They may have an escape hatch because it's entirely possible Coinlab itself didn't come through, i.e. a "material breach," and therefore, Gox isn't obligated to do it.  But litigation was a predictable result of breaching the contract themselves.  And material breach is an affirmative defense.

Whether or not it's true, assuming they ever actually serve this suit on Gox (they have 120 days after filing), we'll likely be seeing a motion to dismiss of some kind soon.  If that doesn't work, we'll likely see an answer citing material breach or some other legitimate reason for pulling out of the agreement, discovery, dueling motions for summary judgment, and if it doesn't end there, a trial where Gox would have to prove out their defenses, which are mainly affirmative defenses, i.e., the defendant has to prove they apply by a preponderance of the evidence.

It could be Coinlab never even actually serves this or it settles well before trial.  The latter is the most likely alternative.  Neither side has much to gain by protracted, expensive litigation on this issue.  Contract litigation is rarely profitable and the remedy is generally to put the plaintiff in the same financial position he'd have been in had the contract been carried out.  In this case, that's highly speculative and would take a lot of time-consuming expert testimony to establish.

So my guess is we'll see some preliminary sabre-rattling and motion practice, then it'll settle for some sum we'll never know because of a non-disclosure agreement.

[darkmule]

^ this, Im certain Coinlab is an elaborate money grab scam.

So they happened to be psychic and knew that Gox would sign a contract and then immediately just breach it?  They must be pretty smart.  Maybe they deserve that money.

[repentance]

Make a contract with venture capitalists and fuck them and they will sue you.  

Which is why it's always so amusing to see people chasing VC.  They might be "angel" investors when things go well and everyone gets rich but they're fucking pirahnas when it doesn't and they'll take control of everything you've worked for in a heartbeat given the legal opportunity to do so.